Describe Flourens’s approach to brain research. Did his conclusions support or refute phrenology? Explain.
In the mid of the 19th century, it was generally concluded that the brain is considered as the organ of the mind. Under the aegis of Gall and other phrenologists, the relationship of brain-mind was adjusted into a number of faculties that are housed in specific brain locations. Thus, the phrenologists modified the concept of localization of functions in the brain that was scientifically substantiated.
Thus, a well-known phrenologist, Pierre Flourens, used the concept of extirpation or ablation for the study towards different regions of the areas of the brain. Ablation refers to damaging the parts of the brain and then studying the behavioral consequences of the loss of the parts of the brain. Flourens identified that the brains of lower animals were similar as that of the human brains.
He concluded that removal of the cerebellum causes an organism’s action of equilibrium and coordination. Hence, Ablation of cerebrum resulted in loss of passivity and destruction of semicircular canals resulted in balance loss. He also studied the entire parts of the brain and suggested that there is some presence of localization in the cortical hemispheres that ultimately function as a single unit.
Flourens postulated that animals regained their functions of the brain after they lost their ability by undergo the process of ablation. Thus, it can be suggested that some parts of the brain had the potential to take over the function for other parts in the brain. He also concludes that cortex majorly functioned as a single unit that specifically refuted the concept of phrenology in a group of medical community.